At long last, Apple today gave its Macbook Air a much-needed refresh. The new MacBook Air ditches the aluminum bezel for a 13.3-inch Retina display that stretches to the edge of the enclosure.

The new MacBook is priced at $1,199 with 128GB of storage. It's available to order starting today in three colors—gold, silver, and space gray—and will start shipping on Nov. 7.

The Retina display quadruples the resolution of the previous MacBook Air with over 4 million pixels and 48 percent sharper color. The portable laptop is also 17 percent thinner and a quarter-pound lighter than its predecessor, measuring 15.6mm thin and weighing in at 2.75 pounds.

Aside from the Retina display, a big new feature addition is Touch ID. Users can now unlock their laptops, use Apple Pay, and enable Touch ID with third-party apps. The fingerprint sensor is fitted into the keyboard itself, occupying its own key on the top right. That keyboard is backlit with individual LEDs and has what Apple says are "four-times more stable keys" built with the quieter butterfly mechanism.

Below the keyboard, the new trackpad has a 20 percent larger surface area that uses Force Touch for a quieter click using pressure-sensitive capabilities and haptic feedback. There's also the front-facing FaceTime HD camera at the top of the display, which now works with the Group FaceTime feature in macOS Mojave.

On the sound front, the new MacBook Air comes with 25 percent louder stereo speakers and 2x more bass, plus a three-mic array. It's also got all-day battery life with up to 13 hours of iTunes movie playback. It's got an always-on processor to enable "Hey Siri" functionality.

There's beefed up on-device encryption and security as well. The T2 chip built into the MacBook Air has a secure enclave with a security processor, boasts unique per-chip IDs, user and filesystem keys, and a secure boot process. It's also got an SSD controller with automatic on-the-fly AES-256 data encryption.

Finally, let's dive into the specs. The new flagship MacBook Air has an 8th-generation Intel i5 CPU with faster 2133 MHz system memory up to 16GB and capacity up to a 1.5TB SSD. The SSDs are 60 percent faster than the previous generation for tasks such as launching apps and opening files. There are two Thunderbolt 3 ports that can connect up to a 5K display.

Apple of course touted how eco-friendly the new MacBook Air is as well. It's made of 100 percent recycled aluminum processed into a new custom alloy. One thing the new MacBook Air definitely does not have: an ill-fated Touch Bar.

Mac Mini (Finally) Gets an Upgrade

Apple also unveiled a new Mac mini, which runs 6-core and quad-core processors, 8th-gen chips, and offers 60 percent faster graphics. It too runs the T2 security chip, which also features fast HEVC video transcoding for pro users to work with high resolution video.

Overall, the new Mac mini is five times faster than its predecessor, Apple says. It boasts Turbo Boost speeds up to 4.6GHz and sports Intel UHD graphics, and with up to 64GB of 2666 MHz memory, the new Mac Mini can load larger files into memory, run more virtual machines, or manipulate even larger data sets.

The base model, which goes for $799, features 8GB of memory, a 128GB SSD and runs a 3.6GHz quad-core i3. But it can be configured to support up to 64GB of memory with fast all-flash storage, a 3.2 or 4.6GHz 6-core Core i7, up to a 2TB SSD, and 10Gb Ethernet.

On the outside, look for Gigabit Ethernet, four Thunderbolt 3 ports, HDMI 2.0, two USB-A ports, and an audio jack.

Before joining PCMag.com, Chloe covered financial IT for Incisive Media in NYC and technology policy for The National Journal's Technology Daily in Washington, DC. She has held internships at NBC's Meet the Press, washingtonpost.com, the Tate Gallery press office in London, Roll Call, and Congressional Quarterly. She graduated with a bachelor's deg... See Full Bio

Get Our Best Stories!

This newsletter may contain advertising, deals, or affiliate links. Subscribing to a newsletter indicates your consent to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe from the newsletters at any time.